CELLINI, Benvenuto, Due trattati, Florence, 1568 ~Fine large copy

CELLINI, Benvenuto
Due trattati, uno intorno alle otto principali arti dell’oreficeria, l’altro in materia dell’arte della scultura;mdove si veggono infiniti segreti nel lavorar le figure di marmo, & nel gettarle di bronzo. Composti da M. Benvenuto Cellini scultore fiorentino.

36 fine woodcut historiated initials depicting architectural views of Italian cities and landscapes. Fine woodcut title-page vignette with armorial device of Ferdinand 1, Cardinal de’ Medici. Text printed in elegant italic font.  Sm. 4to. 

Firenze (Velente Panizzi & Marco Peri), 1568.

Eighteenth-century buff paper boards, spine label, red sprinkled edges (foot of spine slightly chipped and easily repairable)

First edition of Cellini’s two treatises, concerning the techniques of goldsmithing and sculpture in marble and bronze, with remarks on architecture and design.

FINE LARGE COPY, complete with the rarely found blank leaf A6.  

Appropriately, this copy bears an early 18th C. inscription regarding the loan of the book by (or, perhaps to) the Brescian goldsmith Gasparo Rossi – an especially pleasing association for this particular book.  

In our view, one of the most underrated and undervalued books in the rare book market:  A legendary work of great significance, written by Benvenuto Cellini, one of the greatest Italian artists of the High Renaissance and published in his lifetime; the only published account of contemporary workshop practice in 16th century Florence including the only first hand description of Michelangelo’s working technique.  Also included are important poems of Cosimean Florence including one in honor of sculpture by Agnolo di Cosimo (called Bronzino) – the leading painter of mid-16th-century Florence.  

Cellini discusses at length his difficulties in creating the bronze Perseus and Medusa, commissioned for the Loggia dei Lanzi by Cosimo de’ Medici, father of the book’s dedicatee, Cardinal Fernando de’ Medici. This first edition is the only one to contain the sonnets by Angelo Bronzino, Benedetto Varchi and others at the end, celebrating Cellini’s monumental sculpture and other works. It is also the only work by Cellini published during his lifetime–or for that matter up to the eighteenth century, the “Vita” not having been issued until 1728. A second edition of the treatises appeared in Florence in 1731, revised and rewritten in the authorized Italian of the Accademia Crusca.

A little spotting, small marginal puncture in final leaf. Intermittent marginal annotations in a neat early hand.